


no need for princes

by cydbys



Category: Descendants (2015), Descendants 2 (2017)
Genre: Evie's lesbian journey, F/F, Pining, Unrequited Love, self discovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 06:59:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11595327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cydbys/pseuds/cydbys
Summary: Mal had been breaking Evie's heart a little bit more every single day.Or, the one where Evie learns about love.





	no need for princes

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first work on this account! let me know what you think, or comment some requests!

Back on the Isle, Mal and Evie had eaten hearts like candy. Evie had never been quite as good at it as Mal, though. Mal just had a way of making people fall for her, and it wasn't in her looks or her actions. It was just her, just the foundation of her being. She made you fall, and then she destroyed you, whether on purpose or not. She'd ripped apart and then healed back Ben's heart enough times to be proof. It's what she'd done to Uma, Evie was almost sure, and countless others like her. 

It's what she did, a little bit more everyday, to Evie. 

There was a moment, of course, where Evie realized she'd never be it for Mal. It was the moment when Mal and Ben's kiss meant true love, and Evie knew every single one she'd stolen since they were little girls meant less than that. 

Sometimes, Evie feels bad for leading Doug on. Most of the time, that doesn't feel like what she's doing. She'll look at him, and she'll think, "Yes, I could do this." But then she'll catch Mal's eye across the room, and feel foolish for ever letting him believe he could compare. 

(He's insecure, a lot, about the other boys who want Evie's affection. She doesn't know how to tell him it's the girls he should worry about.) 

It gets easier after she pries into Jay and Lonnie's love life, or lack of one. 

The two of them as a couple make sense to her- they dance together, do their whole sports thing together, spend tons of time together. From what Evie knew, they were a happy couple. That meant prime teasing Jay opportunities. But then she asks, and Jay rolls his eyes and Lonnie says "I don't like guys." like it's the easiest thing in the world, and Evie feels a little like her heart has dropped into her stomach. 

She says, "Oh, of course." regains her composure quickly, and flows with the change of topic. Inside, her mind races. She'd figured that there were others like her, she had heard stories on the Isle, after all, but not here in Auradon, and never so open. People on the Isle had discouraged love in any form, and Evie had assumed that this one type of love was just as discouraged in Auradon. 

The next afternoon, Lonnie hands her a pamphlet of information on the LGBT+ community without a word. 

Evie stays up all night, reading it over and over again, rolling the word "lesbian" around on her tongue. 

She asks Lonnie for more copies. She has a list of people she wanted to give them to (a short one, sure, only made shorter by the fact that Jay is Lonnie's best friend and must already have this information) and ends up walking away with an armful of pamphlets and a stomach full of butterflies that she's trying not to think about too much, considering she hasn't actually broken up with Doug yet. 

She gives him one the moment she sees him, afraid to just say it even though it makes her feel like a little bit of a coward. He looks at it, then at her, like he's asking, "so what?" 

Evie wants to scream a little, maybe point a blue nail at the "L" on the cover and shout "Me!" 

After a few seconds of silence he understands, because despite how much the not-rightness of the two of them together turns her stomach, he does get her in a way a lot of people don't. 

He leaves to lick his wounds, and Evie passes a pamphlet under the table to Carlos at breakfast with a wink. 

He flops down on her bed that night, a huge smile on his face. 

"I didn't know that was something I could be." 

Evie giggles, and flops down next to him. "Me neither. It's perfect, don't you think?" 

The air between them turns a little bit more serious. "So, you're gay?" 

"A lesbian." Evie says, with a decisive nod of her head. She's grown really fond of that word. 

"Me too, I think. I mean gay, not a lesbian." 

That sends them into another fit of giggles, even as Evie takes his hand and squeezes it. Despite the fact that she'd sort of come out to Doug, Carlos is the one she first chose to say the words to, and it feels right. It feels like puzzle pieces falling into place. 

"Are you going to tell Jane?" Carlos tilts his head. "Actually, I think she might already know. It's been kind of... weird between us, recently. Like yesterday, she was asking who I thought the hottest prince was." 

Evie laughed again, even louder. "You did say Eric, right? Everyone knows it's Eric." 

"Hey, how would you know?" 

"I like girls, I'm not blind!" 

Of course it's that moment that Mal chooses to walk into the room. 

She raises her eyebrows in surprise, then makes her serious Mal thinking face. 

Evie feels Carlos stand up beside her, like he's going to give them space, but she isn't present enough to loosen her grip on his hand so he can. 

All she can think is, if Mal knows I'm a lesbian then she knows that I've been in love with her for forever and that means she won't want to be friends anymore and oh God what if I have to get a new roommate? 

But then Mal says, "Cool." And sits down on her own bed. Carlos looks back at Evie, saying without really saying it, "I will stay if you need me to but I would really rather not." Evie pats his hand and lets it go. 

Across the room, Mal hums under her breath and marks something in one of her textbooks. 

"Shouldn't we... I don't know, talk about this?" Evie's voice sounds so small and uncertain, she isn't sure that Mal even heard her. Or if she wants her to. 

"What's there to talk about? You like girls, that's cool. I'm fine with it." That almost anger, whatever it is, leaves Mal's face. She leans across the space between their beds to grab Evie's hand. 

"You're my best friend, E. I love you no matter what." Evie shakes off Mal's more prickly response, and focuses on what matters. 

"That night, once the lights are turned off and Evie is half asleep, she could almost swear Mal whispers, "It could have been you and me." 

Evie totally doesn't understand why anyone would want to get so gross and sweaty for fun, but Lonnie invited her to watch this match so of course she's there. Carlos and Jay are competing as well, but Evie probably wouldn't waste a whole night of studying and designing just to watch them. 

Lonnie, though, Lonnie is something else. She's like a hurricane when she fights. Evie thinks she might have said something like that about Mal, once, but it doesn't matter. Hardly anything matters, other than the way Lonnie laughs, breathless and triumphant, as she takes off her helmet. Evie pulls her in for a tight hug. 

"You were amazing." She laughs into her hair. Something about the twinkle in Lonnie's eyes as she pulls back tells Evie she's going to have a good night. 

(She does, and she spends it studying the way Lonnie kisses, slow and shy and then suddenly bold.) 

A year later the differences between then and now are a comfortable mix. Doug and Evie sometimes have lunch, and Carlos and Jay don't talk about it, but Evie knows one of the beds in their room hasn't been used for months. 

Things between her and Mal repair themselves temporarily, then fall apart again, and then they work to repair them together, for good. 

Carlos had decided that, what was he trying to prove, sports totally aren't his thing. He'd found his thing: theater. It would do him good, Evie teased him, to be a little dramatic sometimes. 

She worked all through the night to finish the costumes in time for the first dress rehearsal, and then there was Lonnie with the sunrise, two cups of coffee in hand and a smile on her face. Evie shook Dizzy awake and sent her back to her dorm, then pulled Lonnie into a long kiss. 

"I'm proud of you." Lonnie whispers, and she's looking at the costumes, but Evie knows she means for more. She means for every kid Evie had pulled off the Isle, for every battle Evie had quietly fought, whether against herself or whoever it was who thought that because of where she came from she was worthless. She means for the way Evie had realized she didn't need or want a prince, for the way she'd been doing the right thing for so long. 

She means it because Evie's mom would never say it, but Evie stands tall like she has all the validation in the world anyway. 

Evie lets the other girl tuck her under her arm on the fluffy couch she and Dizzy had dragged into the dressing room. 

She closes her eyes, and her dreams are sweet.


End file.
